Zoe’s Feeds

I have not been keeping a particularly close eye on online pharmacy services for a while, but an interesting email from InHouse Pharmacy sent to their customers has come my way – and it suggests that the ongoing pressure on online pharmacies has not let up recently, with international payment provider OrbitRemit now refusing to serve online pharmacies.

I could not find any further information about this change on either InHouse Pharmacy or OrbitRemit’s web sites, although I did run across an FAQ on IHP’s web site that’s now specifically blaming “BigPhama” – something that’s long been assumed to be the root cause of their problems, but had not previously been confirmed: “Unfortunately we no longer accept Visa Debit and Credit Cards or MasterCard due to lobbyist pressure from BigPharma interests.”

The good news for IHP and those using their services is that Bitcoin is becoming increasingly mainstream and now list this as their preferred payment option. Although it offers no buyer protection compared to other services, it is hard to see any way that pressure can be brought to bear on IHP via this route.

I noticed a couple of the usual outlets today reporting that the Queen’s speech included measures to protect LGBT+ people. So I went to check the text – and that’s not quite what it says:

My government will make further progress to tackle the gender pay gap and discrimination against people on the basis of their race, faith, gender, disability or sexual orientation.

That is a half-complete list of the protected characteristics from the Equality Act 2010. The complete list is race, faith, gender, disability, sexual orientation, age, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and gender reassignment.

I can understand why some of these might not be included if the topic is employment protections – but the exclusion of gender reassignment given the track record of both the DUP and some (not all, thankfully) of the Conservative Party on these issues is worrying. I hope this is merely an oversight, but it seems worthwhile keeping a close eye on any legislation that comes forward during this parliament, to make sure it is fully inclusive.

It would be very easy for someone to slip through legislation that misses or even penalises trans people while parliament is busy dealing with Brexit.

Update: I have now received a copy of the briefing notes for the Queen’s Speech, and whilst they do include trans-related provisions they are all in the past tense. There does not appear to be anything in here for LGB people, let alone T+!

LGB&T Equality

• We have established a £3 million programme from 2016 to 2019 to prevent and address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools.

• To support transgender equality we have increased investment in Gender Identity Services and issued new guidance to prisons on the treatment and management of transgender offenders.

Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament – yes, I know it’s a photo from the wrong year but free-to-use ones aren’t up yet

It will come as no surprise to anyone following the results that no trans members of parliament were elected yesterday, as despite the shock over the overall result relatively few seats actually changed hands. However, a record number of people standing (9) also means some record results – yesterday saw three trans candidates gaining second place. The last time a trans candidate at a parliamentary level reached second place was also the first known trans parliamentary candidate, Alexandra “Sandra” MacRae, who stood for the SNP in 1992.

General elections are predominantly national rather than local campaigns, and the fates of trans candidates have followed those of their party colleagues standing elsewhere – Labour up but with limited gains, Liberal Democrats slipping slightly in non-target seats and the Greens struggling to make an impact.

And so, with polls closing in the last set of elections less than a week ago it is time for another election – 4pm today was the deadline for candidates in the upcoming General Election to get their nomination papers in.

This year’s local elections saw relatively few openly trans candidates with only three people putting their names forward, and no winners. That might seem relatively few, but county elections often produce a different crop of candidates to district councils and three was at least an improvement on the last set of council elections, 2013, in which no known trans people stood.

Against that background, and given this was a snap election in which parties would have less time to ensure a diverse slate of candidates, it would not have been surprising to find fewer openly trans candidates standing than in 2015.

But politics at the moment is defying expectations, and trans candidates are no exception with a record of sixeight nine trans and non-binary people nominated – four Green, three Liberal Democrats and two Labour. This compares well to four in 2015 and none in 2010.

As ever, if you know of anyone I have missed (and you are certain they are out!) please do let me know.

There has been some fuss recently about Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat party leader, and his views on sin. I am finding I am having to answer the same questions and rebut the same half-truths over and over again, so I put together a quick handy guide. The progression of points in here is typically how the debate unfolds but my style tends to be quite dry. Those who want a slightly more emotional response to the issue, which can best be summarised by “FFS, not this again”, should read Jennie Rigg’s post. Jennie is also chair of LGBT+ Liberal Democrats.

For those new to this blog, I should clarify that I’m a bisexual transwoman in a polyamourous relationship.

I have avoided criticism of other politicians in this post, but I would like to note that there is more than enough of the brown stuff to go around if we want to get into a mud slinging contest. Some people might want to go there, but that’s not something I’m doing in this post.

Edit: Since I wrote this post, Tim has answered a direct question on this in parliament. His reply to “Do you believe that homosexuality is a sin” was “I do not”. You can see the clip on BBC iPlayer at about 13:46. It remains to be seen if he has opened Pandora’s Box or not…

But why won’t Tim Farron say gay sex is not a sin?
I don’t think he can, because the question is a trap. It’s not a new trap, and back in 2003 Tony Blair was stopped from answering questions on religion by his spin doctors with the now-infamous line “We don’t do God“.

For political leaders, religion is a Pandora’s Box and should stay closed. Cathy Newman, when she asked him the question, no doubt had follow-up questions for him to try to back him into a corner – she’s an accomplished political journalist and anyone of that calibre will not ask a question without follow up questions in mind. With enough questioning, any politician is going to find themselves forced either into a row with religious leaders (Just look at what happened with Cadbury’s and the National Trust) or with their own party. Neither of those are vote-winning choices.

Unfortunately, Tim did fluff a 2015 interview with Cathy Newman on Channel 4 by starting to talk about theology before he had realised it was a bad idea in his new role as party leader. This original error is why the issue has become a story. For those who might have missed the initial interview, what he actually said was “We’re all sinners”. Yes, it is theologically accurate, but it is unhelpful for a party leader to say. Nevertheless, he has definitely never said he thinks gay sex is a sin.

I do recognise that some people won’t be happy unless he says “No” to the question and that not everyone will agree with me here, but I believe that Tim’s statement that he is not going to make theological pronouncements is probably the right approach. Although Cathy Newman has so far failed to ask any other political leadership figures the same question, you can bet that the likes of May, Khan and so on now all have their own soundbite-sized version of “We don’t do God” prepared.

But he abstained on Same-Sex Marriage!There were six votes, and Tim abstained on one of those due to issues surrounding the spousal veto. “They Work For You” have more on this, just click the linked image on the right to see the detail. If you think that trying to fix the spousal veto during the passage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act was a bad thing, then that’s far from evidence that Tim is homophobic and I must respectfully disagree with you on parliamentary tactics. One of my regrets is that trans politicians did not rock the boat more at the time and try to persuade people to vote against the bill due to its transphobic content. Sadly, we did not as a group have the influence then that we have now.

He’s only suddenly become LGBT+ friendly since he became party leader!
This is where I get to point out that Tim has a long track record of positive action on LGBT+ issues. Tim doesn’t – or didn’t, I suspect the school of hard knocks may affect this – do vapid soundbite politics. Those of us in bi/queer/trans circles often get marginalised by soundbite politics, with “Equal Marriage” being a prime example. (Top tip: We do not have Equal Marriage in the UK. We have Same-Sex Marriage, and you only have to look at the injustices perpetrated by the spousal veto, pension laws and so on to realise this) What he had done is learnt about the detail and spoken in favour of many positive Liberal Democrat policies that are often overlooked.

The older stuff has less coverage as party presidents don’t usually get the limelight, but the photo at the top of this article was at an LGBT+ Liberal Democrats event he spoke at in 2012. From memory, that was the event where several of us spoke to him on the concerns trans people had about accreditation at party conference and which he helped us lobby on in his role as party president. The photo on the right was taken in February 2015, when Nick Clegg was still leader and Tim was out campaigning in my ward. Anyone local to Cambridge may recognise this as being outside the primary school on Coronation Street. Apologies for the poor photo, we didn’t realise this was going to be a “thing” at the time.

You’re only defending him because you’re a Liberal Democrat!Hardly, and I was quite willing to be critical of Clegg when he messed up.

There are a number of loud bisexual/poly/queer/trans voices in the party defending Tim – Jennie Rigg, whose blog post I linked to above for example. A number of us get Righteously Annoyed when people attack Tim on LGBT+ issues because he has been solid on the BT+ parts of the debate for many years when other political leaders have left us out in the cold for not being vote-worthy enough. Seeing people, and sometimes even the same people who sold us down the river over Same-Sex Marriage, attack him for not being word-perfect and repeating the same damaging soundbites as other leaders (“Equal” Marriage) is predictably going to rile us up.

Having run through the history of trans politicians in the UK in three parts – pre-2000, 2001-2009 and post-2010, it’s back to the usual routine and time to report who is standing in next month’s elections.

As a recap, we currently have four openly trans people elected to local government – many people will be aware of the first three, and news emerged last year of a fourth councillor, for UKIP, in Thanet. This is, as far as we are aware, a record high in trans representation in local government – but to put it into context, there are 20,830 seats on principal councils in the UK so the four of us represent just 0.02% of the total number of councillors. For comparison, figures for the number of trans people in the UK usually result in a number an order of magnitude higher, at around 0.1-0.2%.

And now onto the main feature: candidates in 2017. It is slim pickings this year, with only twothree candidates known of so far. I often receive news of more after the initial list is posted and anyone I hear of will be added here. At this point in the four-year local council electoral cycle, it is mostly county councils up for grabs. The job of a county councillor is typically more time consuming than at city/district level, and although I have not seen any evidence on the topic it does seem to favour those who are retired, self-employed and doing well or otherwise better off – which will tend to work against trans people in general. With an increasing number of trans people also holding office and Helen Belcher being the LibDem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Chippenham, there is also a smaller pool of people willing to stand for election!

Happy Local Election Nomination Deadline Day! If you are planning on standing for election on May 4th, you have until 4pm today to get your nomination papers in. As I expect to be posting the 2017 candidate list in the next few days, it is an appropriate day to post the final part of the series on openly trans politicians in the UK, which started as part of LGBT History Month. (For earlier years, see part one covering 1986-1999 and part two, 2000-2010) LGBT History Month is now long past, but as a result of the first two parts I received a number of new leads to chase down on candidates who stood – most turned out to be people who didn’t come out until after they had left office, but many thanks to those who sent them in.

2010 was, in mainstream political terms, when it all kicked off for openly trans representation in the UK – going from one elected councillor in May 2010 up to a record three elected councillors and 9 other candidates in May 2016. It’s notable enough that a trans person standing for election might warrant a short and usually positive human interest piece in the local press, but at least for local election candidates it no longer generates the kind of mock-outrage by tabloid commentators that was previously common. The sheer number of people standing makes it difficult to write a biography for everyone, so only brief details are given on those elected.

The emphasis above is on “openly” above, as there are a number of trans politicians in the UK at local election level who are not out. At least some of the recent increase in numbers can be attributed not just to the increased number of trans candidates standing, but also the increased likelihood of people being out. Records prior to about 2010 are also sketchy, and it is likely some earlier candidates have been missed.

There are two known out Candidates who are now out, but are not listed below as it has not been able to confirm were out at the time of election: Sarah Larkins (UKIP, 2015) and Lee-Anne Lawrance. (Green, 2016)

If you have not been included in this list and believe you should be, please drop me a line. If I know you and have not included you here, it is because I believe you are not out.

2010

Sarah Brown (Liberal Democrats)
2010-2014: Cambridge, Petersfield

Appeared on the Independent on Sunday “Pink List” (later called the “Rainbow List”) of top 100 most influential LGBT people in the UK from 2011 to 2015. Cambridge City Council’s Executive Councillor for Community Services 2013-2014.

As part of LGBT History Month, I have been researching the history of openly trans politicians in the UK and I will be posting these over the next few days. You can read part one of this mini-series here and part two, covering 2010 to 2016, here.

There is a question as to exactly where in the timeline Liddle and Bailey – partners who represented the same ward on Cambridge City Council at the same time – should appear in the narrative. Liddle first stood in 1999 before being elected in 2000, but there was little or no media coverage at the time. Liddle herself has described their trans status as “the worst-kept secret in Cambridge” and then County Councillor for the same ward, Julian Huppert, says that “there were certainly voters who knew … it did come up occasionally on doorsteps. Not, sadly, in a positive light“*

They did not receive widespread coverage until 2007, shortly before Bailey was sworn in as Mayor of Cambridge which, as far as is known, makes Bailey the first and to date only trans mayor in the UK. The publicity didn’t seem to hurt Liddle’s election when she re-stood in 2008, gaining 38.4% of the boat, versus 38.3% in 2004.

Regardless of where chronologically their entry should appear, Liddle and Bailey began a near-continuous run of openly trans representation on Cambridge City Council, broken only for one 12 month period in 2014-2015.

Relatively little is documented about Baty, who stood for election as a Tory candidate in London in 2002. This was a no-hope seat for the Conservative party, and despite being the top-placed candidate from her party Baty managed less than a quarter of the number of votes of the lowest-placed Labour candidate. Despite this, she received some press coverage. In 2002, merely being a candidate whilst out as trans was notable enough to be newsworthy.

Baty also stood in 1998 in the Quadrant Ward of Islington, but does not appear to have been out at the time as no press coverage of her from that election has been located.

Although non-principal council results have not been included, it’s worth noting that in 2009 Baty also stood unsuccessfully for Ramsgate Parish council, in the same ward that in 2015 saw UKIPs only known trans councillor, Sarah Larkin, secure a seat.

It’s not clear if Dearden was already “out” before the Leicester South by-election in 2004, but an unattributed attack leaflet distributed during the run-up to polling day put her name in the public domain and, according to subsequent interviews during the election campaign, Dearden’s own web site initially made mention of it. As with MacRae back in 1992, being a candidate only likely to secure third-place didn’t stop interest from the Daily Mail, which briefly interviewed her in the weeks prior to the election.

Dearden is still involved in politics, having unsuccessfully stood for election to the same area three times – in 2006, 2010 and 2014.

Although she did not make it into the collective memory of the trans community or LGBT politicians in the same way as Dearden did, possibly due to being a member of the smaller Scottish Green Party, Spindler stood in the same General Election. Public knowledge of her trans status appears to have been entirely at her own initiative – multiple sources published on the same day give the same quotes, suggesting a press release simuntaneously sent to multiple outlets.

As part of LGBT History Month, I have been researching the history of openly trans politicians in the UK and I will be posting these over the next few days.

Our history is often confused by the media’s need for sensationalism and they will often latch on to the idea that someone might be “first” at something to make another otherwise run-of-the-mill human-interest story about someone seem more interesting. Sometimes politicians reuse these stories themselves, not realising that the media have not bothered to fact-check their claims. This does not help trans representation in the long run, because it makes people feel as if being elected in politics is something remote and unobtainable for trans people rather than something that is quite achievable.

For those interested in the topic, it’s worth checking out this excellent report from the University of North Carolina’s LGBTQ representation and rights research initiative which covers the global situation.

More information is always welcome, as I will certainly have missed people prior to 2014, when I started compiling lists of known trans candidates at principle authority level or above each year. However, I will state my usual caveat here – I am aware of a number of trans people who hold or have held public office but are not out. I am not in the business of outing people, so I will only include those who are publicly out or have already been outed by the media.

Finally, if any historians would like to work on turning this series into a more formal paper for publication please do get in touch. I would like to be able to get this information recorded in a format more amenable to citation by future generations of activists.

The history of successful trans politicians stretches back surprisingly far – to the mid 1980s. This was a time not just before the Gender Recognition Act was passed but before the campaign group that fought for that legislation, Press for Change, was formed. The trailblazer was Rachael Terri Webb who was, as far as anyone has been able to establish, not only the first openly trans person to have been a candidate in a UK election, but the first to have been elected.

Webb stood for Lambeth council in 1986 to the safe Labour ward of Ferndale, serving there until 1990. She then stood in Gipsy Hill in 1990, until retiring in 1994.

As with many people, it is difficult to establish the extent to which Webb’s history was known prior to her first election as the media rarely gives much coverage to candidates for local councils. More recent articles suggest she was outed by the tabloid press in 1983 as a result of using a loan available to all council employees to pay for surgery, but it has not been possible to locate the original articles yet. However, her position as the earliest known out trans politician and the first to win an election is secure, as there are references in the 1987 book “Bodyshock: The Truth about Changing Sex” as well as other sources prior to her re-election. She was also known to the wider trans community, presenting on the topic of “Transsexuals and Local Authority Equal Opportunities Policies” to the GENDYS conference in 1990.

Looking at the election results, it is notable that although elected comfortably Webb placed third of all three Labour councillors in both elections. That difference is most pronounced in the 1990 Gipsy Hill results, in which she polled 8% lower than the other two Labour candidates in an election that otherwise seems to have seen people voting a straight party ticket, with little or no difference in the votes between candidates of the same party. Concerning though this difference might be, it is entirely possible this difference in votes was for entirely political reasons. She was apparently well known and referenced in a number of articles and books in the late 80’s and early 90’s. These sources typically do not mention her as a trans woman, but do focus on her history as an outspoken member of Militant, on the left wing of the Labour party during a period that saw internal party disagreement on a par with today’s troubles.

MacRae has been in the headlines well before she became a candidate for the SNP, having been outed in 1981 by the News of the World in a story described by the Press Council as “distasteful” – it appears the Scottish Daily Record also ran less-than-positive stories during the election. Despite this, she appears willing to talk about her background publicly as a Herald Scotland article repeats by then historical quotes from her General Election campaign in 1992 where she talks about her transition. Coverage of her candidature is sparser than might be expected – the SNP then were less prominent than today, and MacRae was not expected to win. She placed second on 21.7%, with Labour comfortably holding the seat with 66.5% of the vote.

MacRae was no stranger to elections, having stood at least four times prior to transition, in Edinburgh Central (Feb & Oct 1974), Edinburgh Pentlands (1970) and Midlothian. (1966) Unfortunately, most sources about MacRae are from 1997 when she hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons following a conviction for fraud. According to media reports, she was the first trans woman to be housed in a female prison but as with most media claims about “firsts”, this is tricky to verify.

Mark Rees is perhaps better known as co-founder of Press for Change and a prominent campaigner for gender recognition which resulted in the passage of the Gender Recognition Act in 2004 – a journey which began with a European Court hearing as far back as 1986, the same year that Webb was first elected. In the middle of this period, Rees had served four years as a councillor in Tunbridge Wells, standing in Rusthall Ward first in 1991 before going on to win in 1994. Although he re-stood in 1998, he was not successful.

There are many excellent resources about Rees’ life online, and rather than try to summarise them here, anyone interested should read the articles published by either LGBT History Month or Zagria. Christine Burns’ eBooks, Pressing Matters also cover the story of the campaigning group, Press for Change.

As well as being the first, to date, Mark remains the only openly trans man known to have been elected to public office in the UK.

Mitchell was not out when first elected to Bristol Council. In fact, she didn’t transition until 6 months after her election, meaning she can lay claim to being the first trans person known to have transitioned whilst holding public office in the UK. She was in office for a relatively brief period, and her tenure appears to have not been trouble-free as although apparently accepted by the Labour Group on the council she was refused entry to a Labour Women’s group and did not restand when her term expired in 1999.